


to step on blood and porcelain glass

by lazy_kitkat



Series: have we the audacity to chase tomorrow? [3]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Minecraft Youtubers (Video Blogging RPF), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Depression, Drowning, Grief/Mourning, Hallucinations, Insanity, M/M, POV Second Person, Post-Apocalypse, Spiralling, Suicidal Thoughts, Unhappy Ending, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, dteamweek2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:00:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25746268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazy_kitkat/pseuds/lazy_kitkat
Summary: Day 3: Lies & Apocolypse“I promise.” You wish he hadn’t said that.“That’s nine hundred and ninety-nine,” You say at his confusion, “Nine hundred and ninety-nine promises you’ve made me.”“And I plan to keep every single one of them.”You believe him. You’re a fool but you believe him when he says he’ll take you to see the fireworks at the Big Ben, you believe him when he says he’ll throw the key to his heart into the Seine River so it was always open to you, you believe him when he promised to stay.(Where the world is ending and Dream wishes he never fell in love.)
Relationships: Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF)
Series: have we the audacity to chase tomorrow? [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1864369
Comments: 24
Kudos: 310
Collections: Dream Team Week 2020





	to step on blood and porcelain glass

**Author's Note:**

> Quick reminder, if Dream Team or anyone in my fics express that fanfiction makes them uncomfortable and they’d rather it not be published, I will take this down.
> 
> Other than that, enjoy~

You are a wanderer.

A farer who sets sail onto the seven seas with a loyal steed, who trudges through the rockiest of land with wings borrowed from kind songbirds and soars through the skies on a ship made of stardust and light. There are paths laid before you, twisting and turning into the far distance, to somewhere beyond the horizon, to somewhere which the whisperings of will o wisps call death. Every step you take forward on these paths marks a second less till death greets you with open arms, to a realm unimaginable to those under the reign of life.

But you strayed from these paths, running circles around death until it's kind patience became vile frustration. You escaped the dictatorship of the inevitable, of fate and broke the chains that held you down because you are free. The winds have marked you as kin for you are now anarchy, alive without chains to keep you tied to the earth and dancing to your own song in a ballroom of unison.

You are free.

But then you meet him.

~

_“’lo.” He mumbles and you can feel his breath against your lips. Sleep drags down at his features, lethargy slowing down his limbs and his eyes fluttering as he tries to pull you closer._

_You let him._

_His hands are warm, almost burning against your own skin which the cold had kissed till they were blue. He’s dangerous, you have to remind yourself, not with a gun, not with a knife. Not dangerous like the monsters who roam free now and hunt down life as if they were a roach that needed to be chased out. No, this man was dangerous because he had stolen your heart without you realizing it, your locks and walls crumbling under his gaze. Like a fire, out of control and enraged, burning away everything in its path, you’re the pathetic moth mesmerized by the spectacle of flames and light. You come closer, ignoring how the heat around you starts to scorch and how the tips of your murky wings singe. You go into this blinded by the light and you have to wish, you have to pray, that you won’t burn away in the dust and ash._

_Your lips meet his and it burns. He makes a surprised sound; water being thrown to a kindle in attempts to subdue it but all the flame does is flicker before burning brighter. He smiles against you, his hands wrapping around your neck so smoke fills your lungs. He doesn’t fight against you, content with letting you have your way and as you pull away, he drowns you with so much want that you catch his lips again._

_Pathetic, you think as you bite his lower lips, pathetic, pathetic, pathetic._

_“Dream,” he says softly, his hands pulling at your dirty hair and you hate how it drives you insane. You hate how he welcomed you with open arms, you hate that he didn’t even bother to guard his heart around you, you hate that he just let you take his heart in revenge. You hate that he smiles at you like you own all the beauty in the world, you hate how he looks at you like you’re all that he wants, you hate how easy he makes loving you look._

_You hate how you can’t do the same._

_Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic, you chant in your head but you’re not sure if it’s to him or yourself._

~

A thousand promises and he didn’t keep a single one.

Each of them shatters like glass, shards getting lost in the floor and you no longer care if you step on them. You don’t care anymore if your feet are hurt with scars and covered in your own blood when you walk carelessly because nothing else will ever hurt as much.

He should have kept his mouth shut and you should have covered your ears so you didn’t hear him whisper sweet-nothings late at night. You should have silenced him before he made promises he wouldn’t be able to keep because you swear to the gods, nothing else haunts your waking hours and nightmares more.

_Dream._

You want to hear him say your name again, you want to hear him sing it to the moons like he promised he would. You want him in your arms, you want to hear his heartbeat as you both lie under the night sky, waiting for the sun to bring light to the new day. You want to hear his laugh, you want to feel his hands and you want to taste his lips, just one more time.

You want him here, with you.

But now he’s gone and all you’re left with is his heart and broken promises.

He’s gone, but he was kind enough to leave yours behind, but it’s bleeding. Your heart is bleeding, its tears are blood and it mourns for him. Even if you heal, there will be a scar running straight through the middle, there will be a plain from messy stitches every time you breathe. His heart is in your hands and you should rip it apart in courtesy, for leaving you behind, for leaving in shattered glass and blood. You should let it burn or maybe rot away. It doesn’t beat for you anymore, it’s useless to you.

You should stop loving him.

But he left wanting you, he left willing to turn over the whole world for you. A dead heart can’t beat for another, it can only sing a song before life escapes its breath and that song was for you.

_Dream._

Even in a pool of porcelain and blood, it’s this thought that lets you sleep at night, it’s his voice that lulls you into the realm of impossible fantasies.

_~_

_“How far off are we from the next settlement?”_

_You look over his shoulder, eyes concentrating on the map in his hands. The sun is setting and there is no shelter in sight and you might have to camp under the stars, monsters lurking patiently in the dark becoming a problem._

_“If we keep going, we’ll reach it by noon tomorrow.” He leans into you, “We should probably take a break though. There’s a factory we can camp at. It’s probably empty.”_

_Empty of humans, you think bitterly, overrun with monsters. You nod at him, hitting the gas on the car that you stole, and drive ahead. The road is bumpy, too many cracks, too many bumps due to not being cared for so many years and their car’s broken headlights aren’t helping. It’s quiet and you wish it isn’t. This quiet is something you had to get used to after the apocalypse rained down on civilization in all its fury and malice. You had to learn how to ignore the grumbling of your stomach, how to use your saliva to quench your insatiable throat, how to bandage a bloody slash on your leg and how to shoot a gun. There’s so much you had to learn and now that the world is ending, you have all the time in the world._

_“Do you think about this- if we weren’t all going to die,” he breaks the silence, “Do you think we would have met?”_

_“George-” You start but you don’t know what else to say. He’s not looking at you and it’s probably for the best. You’ve told him countless times to get his head out of the clouds, to stop thinking about the what-ifs and the when-whys. Both of you know that there’ll be a day, or maybe night where you wake up to ash falling from the sky and the world going up into flames. It could be tonight, tomorrow, a month or a year but you don’t have the time to dream up lovely little lives, not when you can die if you stopped for even a second._

_“Left or right?” you say instead, eyes on the road. He tells you left and you swerve around the corner violently, tires screeching terribly and leaving rubber marks behind._

_“The stars are pretty.” You know he doesn’t mean it because he’s staring at you._

_Maybe they are pretty, you don’t bother to check. Just like life, beauty is bound to fall into the clutches of death and chaos and be trapped atop of a tower, too high for anyone to reach. It’s hard to look at a city skyline in awe and not notice the eerie silence and dark windows. It’s hard to look at the sunset without seeing the blood which stains the sky like paint, even corrupting the clouds. It’s hard to appreciate flowering buds without remembering that the bloom’s roots dig into the graves of countless corpses, sucking away at death to make fleeting beauty._

_In the corner of your eye, you watch George who decides to distract himself with a packet of gum. His hair is dark and greasy, pale skin smudged with dark soot and dried blood and his clothes were too big for him with too many rips. He notices you staring and offers you a meek smile and you can feel your heart stutter as you turn away._

_“You’re pretty.” You mumble, loud enough to kill any conversation, but the pink dusting on the other’s cheeks is enough._

~

You can’t walk straight on the line which divides reality and dreams anymore. The lines start to blend like lead on a canvas when you smudge it with your hands and you stumble into each realm, left then right, right then left. Sometimes when you go too left, your feet lift from the ground and you defy gravity, entering a limbo where all you can hear is his voice. Sometimes when you go too right, you can’t get out of your makeshift bed, your heart screaming at you and you wish you can forget.

But you never float away too high where wishes come true or crash into the hard floor of truth. You’ve come close though, but the other side of the line manages to drag you up, drag you down, back onto the line. One which intoxicates you so you forget and one which sobers you up until it hurts.

You trudge through the empty halls of whatever building you're in, (you do not remember), and slowly make your way outside to where a busted vehicle waits for you, stationary and collecting dust. You dump your bags in the trunk and climb into the car. Your fingers tremble slightly when you touch the steering wheel and your eyes fall on the broken radio, emitting static sounds and disfigured noises. You don’t remember the last time you’ve heard a voice other than your own, that you’ve seen a face other than your own murky reflection.

There’s a stray piece of paper, pinned to the dashboard, and on it you can see small lines. There’s a pen next to it and your hand picks it up without thinking. Tallies, you recognize, counting up to something. 

But to what?

You can’t remember but you know it’s your handwriting so you count.

5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 36, 37-

38.

The number doesn’t hold any meaning to you but you let your hand shakily mark another tally. 

You scold yourself for wasting time on things that don’t matter, especially when you have to leave the site before your scent latches itself to the concrete walls, calling for the hungry hunt of monsters. You hit the pedal, relishing in the hum that radiates through the car as it comes to life and you race down the empty roads. You’re surrounded by skinny trees, grey and sickly and with branches barer than the sky and the wind rips against your skin as you go faster than you really should.

Then you stop. 

The road ends and you have to hit the brakes. You scramble out of the car, flinching when the door doesn’t close right and walk to the edge of the road, past the decaying, yellow construction ropes. You get a sense of deja vu when you realise that the road ends at a cliff, the ground is kilometres below you and trees look like small bushes. If you weren’t careful, you could slip and plummet to your doom but the thought doesn’t scare you as much as it should. It would be nice, you think, to fall and land somewhere for once. Maybe it’ll hurt more and you could forget. Forget the blood in your heart and the glass in your feet, maybe you could forget him and his promises. 

You’d just have to jump, jump off and maybe you’ll fly like a bird that needs to leave the safety of their nest. Maybe you’ll fly and finally be free, heavens you miss it. You miss feeling the wind in your hair, wandering off the path and getting lost in the stars.

Either fall into the underworld or let your wings spread, you think and one of your feet is raised over the calling void.

But then you remember warm eyes and a warmer smile and you jerk yourself back. You can’t jump, you can’t leave. You are not free.

Because since you met him, you’ve chained yourself to him like a fool and gave him the key. You gave up the stars, the winds, the seas for him and let him lock you up like a bird in a cage. Your wings are clipped, your food is rationed and freedom is a song you can barely remember.

Now that he’s gone, the key is lost and you’re stuck, trapped in the same cage, in the same bars with a lock that won’t budge.

_Leave_ , you tell yourself as you climb back into your car, _leave, go far, far, far away._

You drive back to the site.

~

_“I’m going to take you the tallest mountain one day,” George tells you, “We’ll climb to the highest peak and then I’m going to scream to the world how much of an idiot you are.”_

_“A-grade poetry shit?” You laugh at him, flicking a bottle cap off the table, “I’ll probably end up carrying you to the top.”_

_He smiles and you don’t think there’s a single song, haiku or ballad in the world that has enough words to describe how much it hurts to be with him, how much it hurts to want him._

_“I promise.” You wish he hadn’t said that._

_“That’s nine hundred and ninety-nine,” You expand at his confusion, “Nine hundred and ninety-nine promises you’ve made me.”_

_“And I plan to keep every single one of them.”_

_You believe him. You’re a fool but you believe him when he says he’ll take you to see the fireworks at the Big Ben, you believe him when he says he’ll throw the key to his heart into the Seine River so it was always open to you, you believe him when he promised to stay._

_“All that and you refuse to say that you love me?” You tease, watching his face fluster. You climb on top of him, hands on either side of his face and relish whenever his eyes flicker to your lips and his cheeks are stained red._

_“That will be my last promise,” He says, “My first is that I’ll stay with you and last that I’ll say- I’ll say that.”_

_“Better start, a guy can’t wait forever.” You lean closer._

_“Depends, how long is your forever?”_

_Too long, you think and your lips are practically touching his._

_“Dream-” Everything is burning again. But this time, this time you don’t care if you burn._

_A thousand promises and he’s going to keep every single one._

_You know it._

_You know it._

_You know it._

~

**In another place, another time.**

He’s holding your hand as he leads you through a sea of bustling crowds and unfamiliar streets. There’s only half an hour before midnight and it’s snowing softly but the city’s never felt more alive with its vivid lights and the thousands of conversations happening all at once. You feel smaller than you ever have before, but it's thrilling at the same time. There’s a serenity that feels surreal, as if you’ll phase through someone at any moment. You feel numb, you can’t feel the warmness of the other’s hand and you dismiss it as the cold.

“Grapes,” George mumbles, stopping all of a sudden, “We should buy grapes.”

“Why?” You ask, towering over him with a height that makes you giddy. You lean in to press your lips against his but he turns away with a laugh.

“You’ll have to wait till midnight for that kiss,” He hides his face in his scarf, “Eating grapes is good luck on New Year's Eve.”

“Random,” You mutter but you let the other drag you through the city when you finally find a vendor who sells the fruit. George buys a bundle and you raise a brow when he turns to you.

“You’re just going to hold them?” He flushes, throwing a grape at you and you catch it with your mouth. You grin, dimples and all, since you’ve never been able to do that before. He throws another one and pouts when you don’t miss. You take one from the bundle, throwing it at him, and laugh when it bounces off his nose and then into his mouth.

“You have terrible aim,” He grumbles while chewing.

“No, I have marvellous aim.”

He looks away so you can’t see him smile and then look up to the sky. It’s a myriad of light when it shouldn’t be, twinkling fairy lights against a black canvas and the coloured illuminating signs around them playing tricks on your eyes.

“How much longer?” You ask softly.

“Seven minutes.”  
  
“We should probably go somewhere where the view will be better?”  
  
“Dream, if you think you’re going to be staring at fireworks and not me at midnight,” George warns you, “You’re very wrong.”

People are starting to crowd against the railing, looking out to the river where the fireworks will set off. You’re both separated from the rest of the crowd, falling behind and stuck in your own little world. You look behind him, past his shoulder, and into the distance where you spot the giant clock tower.

“One minute,” George whispers against your breath, distracting you.

People start counting around you. No one’s eyes are on the two of you right now, no one else is listening to George’s heartbeat against yours. Just you and him, him and you, and this is all you ever wanted.

_5_

That was fast, you think as your arms wrap around his waist and his own around your neck. Your bodies are pressed against each other and time slips away from you like falling sand.

_4_

You can’t feel his skin and you think it’s because your heart is beating too fast. All you can think of is him and only him and it’s driving you insane bit by bit.

_3_

“Happy New Years, Dream.” His lips are so close that you would pull him into you and never let go.

_2_

A thousand promises and he didn’t keep a single one of them.

_3_

You pull away when fireworks don’t rip the tension, when people chant out the wrong number. George looks at you like nothing happened and smiles as if it were perfectly normal.

_4_

Your eyes fall onto the giant clock tower and you realise it is not ticking, still and quiet, but the people around you are still counting.

Counting? To what?

_16_

A thousand promises and he didn’t keep a single one of them. 

You wonder where that’s from.

_73_

Then you fade away.

~

**In another place, another time.**

You’re on a bridge with a thousand other couples, a thousand other stories.

The skies run clear, a pretty blue that almost makes you feel nostalgic. People talk in different tongues, most of them you don’t understand. You walk along the wooden planks, birds squawking for stray crumbs and you watch someone throw a cigarette into the ocean. For the city of love, you don’t feel terribly romantic.

“Oui oui, je suis un baguette,” George shouts out loud, earning the two of you a few strange looks from locals, “Hear that Dream, you’re kissing a piece of bread.”

“No, I’m kissing an idiot.”

He grins, standing on his tippy toes to catch your lips. 

“You have the locks?” he says softly and you nod, pulling out two locks, with the keys still in place. The two of you look for a part of the railing which isn’t totally covered in locks, secrets that will remain secrets for as long as the river runs.

Pont des arts, the love lock bridge that hails notoriously in Paris. People would visit, wish a secret, a confession onto a lock, attach it onto the railings and then throw the key into the Seine River. Declarations of undying love were locked onto the bridge, a promise to keep loving for eternities, a promise to lock your heart for the one you signed it off to, a promise to live with such a love until your dying breath.

“Here.” You point and the two of you hook your separate locks onto the bridge. George whispers into his and you watch him throw his key into the river. It’s your turn and you twist your key but it doesn’t click.

“It’s not working,” You mumble, jostling the key.

“What secret are you hiding?” George’s hand is on yours, his voice isn’t right, and when you turn to look at him, he smiles, “A thousand promises, Dream,”

The lock isn’t closing and you let it fall onto the ground as George walks towards you.

“A thousand promises.”

The key falls from your hand and he pulls you closer to kiss you but it feels wrong. His lips aren’t warm and they manage to send something in your stomach, twisting and sick.

“A thousand promises.”

And he didn’t keep a single one of them.

~

**In another place, another time.**

You’re at the sea this time and it’s calling you.

The moon sings, pulling black waves close enough that they barely touch the tips of your feet. Forward and back, forward and back and you feel George push you towards the water.

“Let’s dance under the moon.” It’s not his voice at all this time, but it’s still his face so you let him take the lead, each twirl, each step taking you deeper into the ocean. Brown sand, something which should be golden, brushes against your bare feet, trying to pull you back to the safety of the shore. But you ignore their warnings and you let yourself fall, into his song, into the ocean, in love. You spin him around and the water reaches your ankles, he pulls you closer and the water tickles your hips and you grow worried.

“Keep dancing,” He whispers in your ear. It becomes harder to move, the water dragging you deeper and deeper till your head is barely above the water. You’re choking but you force your limbs to bring him closer.

“S-stop.” It’s too late for you to call for help, you can barely stay afloat. You struggle to breathe and George drags you under water, crashing your lips with his and taking away your breath. You choke against him, trying to pull away, failing your arms around helplessly. Something builds up in your chest, screaming to be let out, bleeding in pain and then-

And there's tranquility. You give in, you let yourself be consumed by the ocean, by him, and he smiles.

It’s not him, you think.

“1000 promises.” You can’t feel him run his fingers along your mouth and he stares at you with nothing, not even a spark.

A flame completely extinguished, you sink.

You sink deeper and deeper until you can’t see anything, until all breath has left your lungs and then-

Then you drown.

~

When you open your eyes, you’re alone.

The notepad that should have been in your car lies beside you and you shiver. The page is completely crowded by small markings and you count.

_5,10,15,20,25,30,35…_

You keep counting, even when your arm begins to shake and you wonder how long you’ve been here. It’s not cold, or maybe it is, but you can’t feel anything. 

_990, 995, 996, 997, 998, 999-_

Tears stain the paper, you don’t know why you’re crying, but the pen in your hand cuts through one last bundle of four.

_1000._

You shake against the wall, your throat too thirsty to scream, your lungs too weak to breathe. You’re tired, so tired and you want it all to just stop.

_A thousand promises and he didn’t keep a-_

Stop, stop, stop. No, he kept them, you know he did, you remember seeing his face, holding his hands and hearing his laugh.

_Dream._

No, no, no. You don’t want to listen anymore, you just want to let go and let death carry you to wherever you need to go. 

_“That will be my last promise,” He says, “My first is that I’ll stay with you and last that I’ll say- I’ll say that.”_

He is still here-but then he isn’t, he has said it, but he hasn’t. You want to hear him say it, you want to hear him say it before you leave. 

I love you.

That’s all you need to hear and you play through a thousand days but you don’t hear it once.

You did worse than burn. You let him become your everything, you let him take your everything and now that he’s gone, you have nothing. You love him, you love him but you need to hear him say it back, you need to know that he wasn’t just an illusion concocted from the wells of insanity. You need him to come back and break you free, to help your heart beat again and this time in tune, to smile when the darkness rips you apart limb by limb.

You miss his lips, you miss his eyes and you miss his heart. You miss being looked at as if you were everything right in the world and you miss being wanted. You want to hold him again, this time tight enough that death can’t take him away, that nothing can spilt you apart.

You’ve become trapped in your own heart, twisting and turning, left-right to walls that look the same in the labyrinth called love. You’ve gotten lost, too deep into the woods that no matter how hard you scream, no one will hear you, no one will come for you. He’s broken you and he hasn’t come back to put you back together, to carefully pick up every fragment, every shard, and now you’re scattered and can’t move on.

You wish he was still here.

You wish you could hear his heartbeat entwine with yours.

Your sight is failing you, abandoning you in a world of pitch black, and you think you’re dying. You think you can hear him, his voice in the winds, you think you can hear him say those three little words.

I love you.

(But you can’t.)

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> 'lo again.
> 
> For anyone who can't make sense of what's going, George dies in the middle of the apocalypse and Dream slowly drives himself insane with grief by reliving one of the thousand promises that the other wasn't able to keep each day.
> 
> I'm really proud of this fic so I hope y'all enjoyed and I hope a few hearts are shattered. See you tomorrow I guess,
> 
> xoxo winter
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/yourlazykitkat) & [tumblr](https://yourlazykitkat.tumblr.com/)


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